I was listening to a doctor talk about panic and anxiety. He said basically the worst thing you can do if you have anxiety is to fight it. He said the best thing to do is to let it pass over you without resistance at all.

This really spoke to me because I've spent years fighting with my anxiety. I've fought it with everything from alcohol to medications. He said since its a normal human emotion and it's built into our survival response and adrenaline, fighting it is futile and will make it worse. It's like fighting fire with gasoline.

I was so terrified of feeling the uncomfortable symptoms of it, instead of just allowing it to be present so that it can wash over me and pass faster. Sort of like being in the eye of the storm. You need to remain calm and let it pass without judgement, because it will pass, you don't need to reach for anything to quell it, it will quell on it's own. The only time this becomes a problem is if you keep fighting it down, beating it down and then fearing it which creates its own paradoxical cycle.

His name is Dr. Harry Barry (I'm not affiliated with him at all, just found his video on youtube in case anyone wants to look into this themselves).
This was the best piece of advice I've ever gotten.
None of my doctors told me this. None of them told me to not fight it.

All of the doctors I've had in the past have actually fueled my fear because they made it into this big deal, they wanted to medicate me, they treated it like a disease, they did everything possible to try to fight it. Didn't work at all, made it much worse, in fact.
So for anyone out there who has been struggling with anxiety, please don't try to fight it, allow it, and realize that even though "the symptoms are uncomfortable, they are not dangerous".
This will allow it to not have so much control over you. I wish someone told me this sooner.

Any attempts to resist it makes it worse. He even said breathing into a paper bag makes it worse because you're telling your body you need to do something to make it pass when really, you don't. The resistance makes it worse.